Rotala Management - Questions & Answers

[Ash]

Fair enough for Diamond regarding the taking on the tender, but the 226W in my opinion is such a bad idea for a route. Just a waste of diesel one day a week, especially when the 74 leaves 5 minutes before it.

The 226W is supposed to provide a link to the Russell's Hall Hospital from West Bromwich and agree between West Bromwich and Dudley it's hardly used, although if it was a service provided monday to saturday as well as Sunday's it would be much more popular. If this was to be the case you could extend the 42 service from Dudley with an express service to the hospital (non-stop) which would not increase the journey time by much.

It seems to me that the 40/42/43 are the routes most in need of upgrade. Its a mismatch of solos and old darts some of which arent great along with MPDs in many liveries. Could rotala buy some more smaller enviro200 darts like the ones at wessex to replace the euro2 MPDs some of which look a bit dated?

The 40/42/43 can be busy services most of the time they need full size single deckers, if more buses were to come to Tividale for service 4 or the 301 then the cadets would be ideal for these services.

[Sh4318]

Fair enough for Diamond regarding the taking on the tender, but the 226W in my opinion is such a bad idea for a route. Just a waste of diesel one day a week, especially when the 74 leaves 5 minutes before it.

...or passengers could get the 4M to Merry Hill, which would be miles quicker

[Jay]

Why don't you extend the 226 to west bromwich daily?

They cannot run the 226 right now as some drivers not all ( Some will run to time but others will park up and fake a brake down ( well thats what they tell Centro then leave on hansons time))  will hang back or park up on route and then run on hanson time. so before you send it to west brom i think Simon will have to look in to why his drives are doing the above and taking the piss out him and rotala. ps Simon they do mess about on the night when centro pay you to run the routre

[PM]

Had a nice ride round the diamond network today and caught some of the new enviros which are nice and some of the ex yourbus darts

Couple of points:

Why did diamond initially try to sell all the ex first enviro300s?

One of the ex yourbus darts still has yourbus interior notices-could these be removed? Other than that, great buses and the ones at redditch/kidderminster seem to rattle a lot less than 20849.

Which buses are the priority for repaint at the moment?

Oh and in walsall bus station, I asked about the diamond 301 timetable which didnt seem to be there only to be told diamond didnt run the 301 anymore?? when I could see one outside-maybe this is the problem with bus information points ran by nx officials.

Thanks Simon

[Simon Dunn]

Hi Simon,

Are you able to confirm who the Levantes have been sold too?

Interesting that the 3 x 59 plate Centros are the ex Go Whippet that operate on the guided busway, are these available immediately or are you having to wait for Go Whippet to receive new busway vehicles first?

This seems like the never ending story with the Levantes.  The vehicles should have gone a few weeks back, there has been some delays.  This should go through anyday

We are due to pay for the today/tomorrow/ in the next few days.  My understanding is that the equipment from the busway is being swapped from them to new buses and when this is complete we will pay and take delivery.

Thanks Simon,

Sounds as though you are nearly there with the Levantes  ;) obviously they are expensive assets to be sat around doing very little. Do you intend to re-invest the proceeds of the sale of these back in to upgrading the Diamond bus fleet?

One thing that did cross my mind, have Rotala/Diamond ever considered dropping the price of their cash fares to attract more passengers on your commercial competing services? Obviously they are set at exactly the same level as NXWM? And not everyone would be looking to buy a return ticket
Additionally, the Diamond day ticket is priced at £3.90 exactly the same as NXWM, but Diamond doesn't have the same network coverage or hours of operation

Have you ever looked at buying any MAN/Wright Meridian? There seems to be a number of late model examples around, not sure if that is a good thing or not....

The Levantes were on an Operating Lease.  A subsidiary of National Express has taken assignment.

On an on going basis, we look at our fares.  What matters to us, is the money we take per trip, not what we charge.  Our whole pricing strategy is something we need to review again.  I agree with your comments that clearly a day ticket with ourselves with not worth the same value as on NX.  On the NBus panel, I tried to encourage the cost of the NBus product to be no more than NX (or less).  However, this is not something that any other operator or Centro would support.

I did participate in an Auction for some MAN/Wright Meridian.  They went for more than I would like to pay. I am not particularly an MAN fan, and the reason why we sold the MAN MCV's was because the relationship failed with MAN.  In our opinion they made a catalogue of promises which they failed to keep.

[Simon Dunn]

Hi Simon, Have you ever considered introducing a sunday service on the 002 with it being a popular service mon-sat and Merry Hill being as busy if not busier on a Sunday. Also may be extending the finishing time of the service monday-saturday.

The 4M mon-sat is every hour and when I have caught the service seems quite well used are there any plans to increasing the frequency may be to every 30 minutes.

Thank You.

We intend to review all our Black Diamond operations shortly.  Any comments you have would be appreciated.

[Simon Dunn]

On Bank Holiday monday when on the 50 line of route, I saw 30004 BX07AXO-I'm sure of it but havent seen it since. I was wondering if you could tell me if it was at long acre, if I was imagining things or got the reg totally wrong and if it is at long acre whether it will be out again

Thanks Simon

This vehicle was one, we intended to move to Long Acre.  Only one now be moved, and from memory I cant remember if this is going back to Bath or not

[Simon Dunn]

Why don't you extend the 226 to west bromwich daily?

The 226 variation to West Bromwich is a variation undertook on behalf of Centro.  We do not believe Monday to Saturday this is something that would be commercially viable.

[Simon Dunn]

when will you be starting a review for Kidderminster area

This is already underway.  Any comments you have are welcome

[Simon Dunn]

Fair enough for Diamond regarding the taking on the tender, but the 226W in my opinion is such a bad idea for a route. Just a waste of diesel one day a week, especially when the 74 leaves 5 minutes before it.

The 226W is supposed to provide a link to the Russell's Hall Hospital from West Bromwich and agree between West Bromwich and Dudley it's hardly used, although if it was a service provided monday to saturday as well as Sunday's it would be much more popular. If this was to be the case you could extend the 42 service from Dudley with an express service to the hospital (non-stop) which would not increase the journey time by much.

It seems to me that the 40/42/43 are the routes most in need of upgrade. Its a mismatch of solos and old darts some of which arent great along with MPDs in many liveries. Could rotala buy some more smaller enviro200 darts like the ones at wessex to replace the euro2 MPDs some of which look a bit dated?

We have a number of Enviro 200's in our fleet.  We have an on going relationship with ADL, but as a product I think there are better product.  With regards fleet replacement.  It would be nice to operate an all new fleet.  However, we have to invest money at a gradual rate, to maintain a sensible level of Debt leverage in the overall business.  What we undertake needs to make business sense and be affordable to the individual business unit

[Simon Dunn]

Why don't you extend the 226 to west bromwich daily?

They cannot run the 226 right now as some drivers not all ( Some will run to time but others will park up and fake a brake down ( well thats what they tell Centro then leave on hansons time))  will hang back or park up on route and then run on hanson time. so before you send it to west brom i think Simon will have to look in to why his drives are doing the above and taking the **** out him and rotala. ps Simon they do mess about on the night when centro pay you to run the routre

I am surprised by your comments.  This service has come under scrutiny from VOSA.  From their investigations 95% or more of our journeys operate with in the window of tolerance.  That being said, any VOSA view is at those given point in time.  We do monitor these services on an on going basis, if you have specific examples of were this has happened I would appreciate some exact information off line.  It is important that we run our services properly and we do not give instructions to drivers to or any member of staff to act inappropriately.

[Simon Dunn]

Had a nice ride round the diamond network today and caught some of the new enviros which are nice and some of the ex yourbus darts

Couple of points:

Why did diamond initially try to sell all the ex first enviro300s?

One of the ex yourbus darts still has yourbus interior notices-could these be removed? Other than that, great buses and the ones at redditch/kidderminster seem to rattle a lot less than 20849.

Which buses are the priority for repaint at the moment?

Oh and in walsall bus station, I asked about the diamond 301 timetable which didnt seem to be there only to be told diamond didnt run the 301 anymore?? when I could see one outside-maybe this is the problem with bus information points ran by nx officials.

Thanks Simon

Thank you for your comments

In response to your questions

1.  Having acquire the two businesses based at Redditch and Kidderminster, I was approached and made an offer for the E300's.  I was not really interested in selling them, but as this offer was more than I viewed they were worth I decided to put them in the weekly advert we were running.  As if someone was prepared to pay more, maybe it made sense to dispose of them and replace with newer vehicles.
2.  Yes, the YourBus information should not be on.  Ironically I acquired these vehicles from Ensign Bus. 
3.  We must have about 6 vehicles going through paint at the moment.  We have now paid for the 3 x 59 plate Volvo's (they will go into paint soon), we agreed a deal with Wrights on Friday for 12 Streetlites.  We need to get all these vehicles into fleet to create capacity to repaint other vehicles.
4.  This is because we did not sign up to the Network review in this area.

[Simon Dunn]

Since Tony received his fleet list.  There has been some fleet changes, and I think some of you expressed a desire to take pictures of the buses before they go.  Since Monday of this week, we have accepted offer on the following

1.  Willenhall Commercials

K123/6URP, plus all 5 darts parked up at Redditch and Kidderminster

2.  Peter Reddish - for Scrap

The last lance at Kidderminster

3.  A Bristol operator with 1 or 2 vehicles.

These are planned to be removed after service on Monday

R220MSA
P401MLA

[NXWM Spectra]

Had a nice ride round the diamond network today and caught some of the new enviros which are nice and some of the ex yourbus darts

Couple of points:

Why did diamond initially try to sell all the ex first enviro300s?

One of the ex yourbus darts still has yourbus interior notices-could these be removed? Other than that, great buses and the ones at redditch/kidderminster seem to rattle a lot less than 20849.

Which buses are the priority for repaint at the moment?

Oh and in walsall bus station, I asked about the diamond 301 timetable which didnt seem to be there only to be told diamond didnt run the 301 anymore?? when I could see one outside-maybe this is the problem with bus information points ran by nx officials.

Thanks Simon

Thank you for your comments

In response to your questions

1.  Having acquire the two businesses based at Redditch and Kidderminster, I was approached and made an offer for the E300's.  I was not really interested in selling them, but as this offer was more than I viewed they were worth I decided to put them in the weekly advert we were running.  As if someone was prepared to pay more, maybe it made sense to dispose of them and replace with newer vehicles.
2.  Yes, the YourBus information should not be on.  Ironically I acquired these vehicles from Ensign Bus. 
3.  We must have about 6 vehicles going through paint at the moment.  We have now paid for the 3 x 59 plate Volvo's (they will go into paint soon), we agreed a deal with Wrights on Friday for 12 Streetlites.  We need to get all these vehicles into fleet to create capacity to repaint other vehicles.
4.  This is because we did not sign up to the Network review in this area.

Will any of the newly acquired buses be for the Midlands?

[nitromatt1]

Hi Simon, I was wondering if you know what's happened to the 002-branded Centro 30808, which has been missing from the 002 for at least a couple of months now?